A SERMON
"Thy Father hears the mighty cry of anguish,
And gives His answering messages to thee."
--_C. Pennefather._
Brief sleep, if any, had John Grayson that Sunday morning. As so often
heretofore he could not sleep for pain or sorrow, now he could not sleep
_for rest_. The sense of the peace that was all around him was too new,
too wonderful. He soon arose from that fair, snow-white English bed,
with its pure linen smelling of lavender, to wander out over the dewy
lawn, where the morning sun touched everything with glory. The birds
sang aloud to welcome the new day--the long, long day--every hour of it
to be filled with their innocent joy. One sweet-voiced blackbird lighted
on a rose-bush close to him, and sang. They seemed to have no fear. In
this happy land fear did not reign. No doubt it was there--often--for
England, after all, was earth and not heaven; but it was a shadow
lurking in dark places, not an eclipse blotting out the sun, a presence
darkening all the joy of life.
But this blessed peace only stamped deeper upon Jack's heart the memory
of that far land of agony and blood. "If I forget thee, O Armenia," he
said aloud, "let my right hand forget her cunning. If I do not remember
thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, if I prefer not thee
above my chief joy. My chief joy," he thought again, "lies buried there,
and can never live for me upon this earth. But, by that grave, by that
dead love, or rather by that love that can never die, I am pledged not
to rest in happy England, but to work for sad Armenia, and to wait for
my Sabbath keeping until we keep it all together in the Home above."
He did not know how long it was before his cousin came out to summon him
to their early Sunday breakfast. Fred's voice had lost the joyful ring
it had at their first meeting. He looked like a strong man who had just
heard of a great bereavement. Lucy, waiting to receive him in her fresh
Sunday dress, with her look of peace and purity, felt vaguely that there
was sadness in the air, but her mind was too full of her Sunday-school
class to dwell upon that subject.
"Will you come with us to church?" Fred asked his cousin.
Jack looked surprised at the question. "Certainly," he said. "Why not?"
"Because I have to say that which will give you pain--yet I cannot
forbear. You have given me my sermon for to-day."
Nevertheless John Grayson joined the stream of church-goers: fathers,
and mothers, and little children, old men and old women coming in
together, while the rosy-cheeked Sunday scholars took their appointed
places. He looked round with strangely mingled feelings on the old
country church, which was without elaborate ornament, although seemly
and reverent in all its appointments, as befitted a house of God. But
what most arrested him was the "fair white cloth" on the Holy Table,
showing that the Feast of the Lord was spread that day. He had never yet
partaken of it in the Church of his fathers; but he no more doubted his
right to come than the child doubts his right to sit down at his
father's table, because it is spread in a strange room. It was a joy to
look forward to that; it was a joy meanwhile to join once more, though
with trembling lips, in the dear, familiar prayers-those prayers "that
sound like church bells in the ears of the English child."
And now his cousin stood in the pulpit. In his aspect and bearing there
was a deep solemnity, which, young though he was, made him look in
truth "as one that pleaded with men." He read his text, "_A name which
is above every name_," and began with an exposition of the context,
lucid, thoughtful, and evincing careful study.
Jack's thoughts wandered from the words to the speaker, and from the
speaker to the surroundings, once so familiar, now so unwonted and
strange to him. Presently however a word arrested him.
"My brethren," said the preacher, leaning over the pulpit in his
earnestness, "have you ever thought what a wonderful thing is the love
of Christ?"
"Surely," Jack said to himself, "if we have ever thought of Him at all,
we have thought of that."
"I do not mean now," the preacher went on, "the love of Christ for us. I
use 'love of Christ' as I use 'love of country,' 'love of friends,' to
mean--not theirs for us, but ours for them. And I say, that the love of
Humanity for Christ is a mystery only less than the grand, supreme
mystery of all--the love of Christ for man. And the greater mystery is
proved and illustrated by the less. As we may look, in its reflection,
on some object too bright to gaze upon directly,--as we may measure a
mountain by its shadow, so may we gain some faint conception of _how_
'He first loved us,' by the wondering contemplation of how men in all
ages have loved Him.
"Consider. The Man called Christ Jesus lived, for three and thirty
years, or less, in a little corner of the world, which He never left. Of
those years thirty were spent in silence and obscurity; only for two or
three did He flash into sudden fame, soon cut short by a violent death.
He did not write, He did not organize, He did not rule; He only taught,
and lived, and loved. Yet what has His name been in the world ever
since? What is it in the world to-day?
"You will say, 'It is the Name of the Founder of our religion, through
Whom we approach the Divine Majesty, and as such we hold it in
reverence.' It is that; but to thousands upon thousands it is something
infinitely more. It is the name of their dearest, most beloved, and most
trusted personal Friend--the Name of Him whom it is their deepest joy in
life to serve, their sweetest hope in death to see. It was the poet gift
of voicing the deepest longings of humanity that inspired the dying song
we know so well,--
"'I hope to see my Pilot face to face,
When I have crossed the bar.'
"There is one test of love, usually accounted supreme. 'Greater love
hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.'
Freely and joyfully has Humanity poured forth her best blood for the
Name of Christ. Those who have given Him this supreme proof of love we
call His martyrs, or His witnesses. Other names, other religions, other
causes, have had their martyrs too. Indeed, I think the word is true
that all great causes have their martyrs. And I dare to think too that
the wine of self-sacrificing love, though we may count it vainly
spilled, cannot sink into the earth beyond His power to gather up who
takes care of lost things. But I think also--nay, I know--that the
martyrs of Christ stand apart from all the rest, in their immense
multitude, in the joy and peace they had in suffering and in death, and
in the sustaining, animating power of their love to Him for whom they
died.
"I have spoken to you, sometimes, of the martyrs of past days. I could
not help it; their memory is very dear to me, and the records of their
faith and their patience have touched and thrilled my own heart since
childhood. But I never dreamed or guessed that even while I spoke,--now,
in the end of this nineteenth century, this age of science and
enlightenment, this age of pity and compassion, a new legion was
marching on, through blood and fire, to join the noble army of martyrs
before the throne of God."
Here the grey head, which had rested bowed and motionless in that seat
below the pulpit, was raised up suddenly, and the eyes that had
witnessed so much agony sent a look into the preacher's face that almost
stopped his words. But, after a scarcely perceptible pause, he went
on,--
"It has been, to some of us, a pain all the greater because of our utter
helplessness to read even the meagre accounts that have come to us of
the massacres in Armenia. Now that I have heard from the lips of an
eye-witness, who is here present amongst you this day, the details of
_one_ such massacre, I am bound to tell you solemnly that the pain
should have been greater still. The most awful, the most lurid accounts
we have had, fall short of the terrible reality. The half has not been
told us."
Then he gave briefly, and as calmly as he could, the story of the
massacre of Urfa, and of the burning of the cathedral, as John Grayson
had told it to him.
"I refrain," he continued, "from recounting horrors which would
needlessly wring your hearts. I speak of death; I do not speak of
torture. I tell you a little of what men, our brothers, have suffered.
But oh, my brothers,--oh, my sisters, and theirs!--I have no words to
tell the worse agonies of your helpless sisters. I dare not tell--I
dare not even hint at the things I know--and which they have had to
suffer! Only, thank God on your knees to-night that He has made you
Englishwomen!
"And, remember, I have told of Urfa, but Urfa is only one town of many
in Armenia. Like things have been done in Sassoun, in Marash, in
Diarbekir, in Melatia, in Kharpoot, in Van, in Erzeroum,--in hundreds of
towns and villages with strange names we have never heard. The land,
which for fertility and for beauty might be a very Garden of Eden, is
fast becoming a desolate wilderness.
"But, you will say, all this agony does not make martyrs. For that is
needed, not suffering only, but witness-bearing. True; though in a
loose, general fashion all those who lose their lives in any way on
account of their religion are often called martyrs. But even the most
stringent application of this name of honour must include all those who
have, _voluntarily_, so laid down their lives. He who has been offered
life on the condition of apostasy, and has refused it, has won his
crown, and no man may take it from him. Armenians without number have
stood the test, and made the grand refusal. In some places the utterance
of the Moslem symbol of faith, in others the lifting up of one finger,
was all that was required, yet men and women, and children even, have
endured death and torture rather than say those words or make that sign.
Shall I give you instances? Shall I tell you of the venerable archbishop
of the ancient Armenian Church, who had first his hands, and then his
arms hewn off, but no agony could separate him from his Saviour, and at
last he died repeating the creed? Shall I tell you of the student of
theology, who answered his tempters with a steadfast 'No, for I have
come to this hour in God's will and appointment, and I will not change,'
and was slowly cut in pieces? Shall I tell you of the little girl, the
child of twelve, who said to the Moslem, 'I believe in Jesus Christ. He
is my Saviour. I love Him. I cannot do as you wish even if you kill me'?
Shall I tell you of another girl and her young brother who, when the
murderers came, embraced one another, their faces radiant with joy? 'We
are going to Christ!' they said. 'We shall see Him just now.' Time would
fail me indeed to tell of these, and of the many like them in faith and
patience. But one thing is as true of those who suffer for the Name of
Christ to-day as of those who suffered for that Name in the first
century, or the sixteenth, or any century between--there walks with them
in the furnace One like unto the Son of God."
There was a pause, and then the preacher resumed. "But there are two
questions our hearts are asking, in the face of all this suffering:
'What is Christ doing?' and 'What shall we do?' There is no use in
saying that the first of these questions is one which we ought not to
ask at all. There are times when there is little use even in telling our
passionate, aching human hearts that we ought to be satisfied with what
we know and believe of His spiritual presence with His faithful people.
Thank God, He did not forbid the questionings of His tried servant the
prophet, who flung himself at His feet with the half-despairing cry,
'Righteous art Thou, O Lord, when I plead with Thee: yet let me talk
with Thee of Thy judgments.' Nor of that other who pleaded, 'Thou art of
purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity:
wherefore lookest Thou upon them that deal treacherously, and holdest
Thy tongue when the wicked devoureth the man that is more righteous than
he?' Indeed, I dare to think that, if we _do_ throw ourselves at His
feet--the feet pierced for us--there is no question we may not ask Him
there.
"What then _is_ Christ doing? He sits in His glory at the right hand of
the Father; He sees all this agony, and He _lets it still go on_. He
sustains the sufferers; He strengthens and comforts them often; but--He
_lets it still go on_. 'How can He bear it?' our hearts cry out
sometimes. I think the answer is, that He _is_ bearing it. He suffered
for the sufferers; that is not all--He suffers _with_ them. That is yet
not all; He suffers _in_ them. They are not His people only, but His
members; of His flesh and of His bones. For reasons inscrutable to us,
His agony must go on still in them--still He cries to the oppressor,
'Why persecutest thou Me?' But one day He and they, and we also, shall
see the end. Then shall we know the secret of the Lord; then shall the
mystery of God be finished.
"Meanwhile, with the martyrs it is well. 'Therefore are they before the
throne of God, and serve Him day and night in His temple, and He that
sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them.' But _all_ are not yet
there, beyond the agony. For the thousands upon thousands of sufferers,
bereaved, tortured, famine-stricken, dying slowly in Turkish prisons,
or, deepest horror of all, in Turkish harems, what shall we say? Is the
burden laid on our hearts for them too heavy to be borne? Remember,
Christ bears it _with us_, as, in a deeper sense than we can fathom,
Christ bears it _in them_.
"I think this answers our second question, What shall we do?
'It is MY SAVIOUR struggling there in those poor limbs I see.'
Friends, if He is there indeed, in His members, what sacrifice would we
not make, what treasure would we not pour out with joy, to come to His
help?
"But perhaps you say, 'What _can_ we do?' I am not speaking to those who
can influence the councils of our rulers, except by prayer, and by the
formation and expression of that intelligent opinion which does, in the
end, make its power felt. Therefore it is beside the question to ask
what they should have done, or what they should do now. We have to find
out what _we_ should do, each one of _us_.
"There are thousands of little children, fatherless and motherless
because their fathers and mothers have gone to God, often through the
gate of martyrdom. They are wandering in the streets, homeless and
destitute. They die, or haply they are taken by Moslems, and taught to
hate the faith their parents died for. _We can rescue these._
"There are thousands of widows, desolate in heart and home, each with
her tale of anguish, longing, it may be, to lay down her weary head and
join her loved ones in the grave, yet forced to struggle on for the
daily bread of those still dependent on her. _We can succour these._
"There are thousands of ruined men, who have lost home, occupation,
health, and whose hearts are well-nigh desperate with the things they
have seen and suffered. _We can give back hope to these._
"One word more, brethren. We have spoken of the power of the name of
Christ. That Name, which we teach our little ones to lisp,--that Name,
which sanctifies our daily prayers,--that Name, which our beloved ones
whispered to us with failing breath as their feet drew near the dark
valley, that Name, which yet--oh, strange mystery!--is dearer to our
hearts than even theirs--that Name was on the lips of each one of the
slaughtered multitude whose blood is crying to heaven--that Name is
still on the lips of the suffering remnant that are left. It is in that
Name that they ask our sympathy, our help.
"I have spoken of our dead, our dear dead who lie out yonder, where
God's blessed sun is shining on the graves in which we laid them to
their rest. We turned sadly away; we thought our hearts were breaking
because we _had_ to lay them there. What of our brothers and our
sisters, to whom it is joy past telling, the only joy they can look for
now, to know their beloved ones are dead--and safe? In that land of
sorrow they weep not for the dead, neither bemoan them; it is for the
living that they weep. Nor are there graves to weep over, even if they
fain would do it. The dead--and, remember, they are the Christian
dead,--lie unburied in the open fields, or are heaped together in
trenches which the earth can scarcely cover.
"Known unto God the Father, known unto Christ the Redeemer, is each atom
of this undistinguished dust. Into His keeping He has taken the dead,
but to us He leaves the remnants that survive, and that it is possible
still to save. Will you take them to your hearts, for His NAME'S sake?"
The preacher gave the usual benediction, descended from the pulpit, and
began in due course to read the beautiful prayer "for the whole state of
Christ's Church militant here in earth." Very solemnly, in a voice of
suppressed emotion, he read on, till he came to the words, "And we most
humbly beseech Thee of Thy goodness, O Lord, to comfort and succour all
them who in this transitory life are in trouble, sorrow, need, sickness,
or any other adversity." Here his voice faltered, but he went resolutely
on, "And we also bless Thy holy name for all Thy servants departed this
life in Thy faith and fear." Then the rush of feeling overwhelmed him,
and he did that fatal thing to do in an assembly charged with
emotion--he stopped. A sob broke from one, then from another, and yet
another still, until a wave of weeping passed over the whole, like the
wind over a field of corn.
It was but a few moments; the reader recovered himself, and continued
the Service. Nearly all the congregation remained, and gathered round
the Table of their Lord that day; and it may be they felt, as they had
never done before, the bond of communion with the scattered and
suffering members of the Lord Christ.
That evening John Grayson said to his cousin, "Of course you know that I
am going back again,--with only a change of name."
"I am going with you," Frederick Pangbourne answered quietly.
"You!" Jack's heart gave a sudden leap.
"Why not? There are plenty to work here, and I have often thought of the
mission field. Is there any field more urgent than this?"
Jack was silent, grave with a solemn joy. What might not they two
accomplish, shoulder to shoulder, the fortune he had already resolved to
share with Fred all consecrated to the work!
Fred continued, "Do you remember that cry that rose from ten thousand
hearts, when Peter the Hermit called upon all Christendom to rescue the
sepulchre of Christ from the hands of the Moslem--'Dieu le veut?'--'God
wills it'? Is it not as much a war of the Cross to rescue from them,
not His empty sepulchre, but even a few of His living, suffering
members? We can say--you and I to-day--'God wills it.'"
APPENDIX
The greatest care has been taken to make the foregoing pages absolutely
true to fact. All that has been told of the massacres and their
attendant circumstances has been taken either from thoroughly reliable
published sources, or from the narratives of trustworthy eye-witnesses.
In the story of the massacre of Urfa and the burning of the Cathedral
the official report of Vice-Consul Fitzmaurice has been largely used,
and only supplemented by the additional details furnished by those on
the spot.
In one respect particularly the truth has been strictly adhered to.
Every instance given of _martyrdom_, properly so-called, or of courage,
faith, patience, or devotion, is entirely authentic. The stories of
Stepanian, of Thomassian and his wife, of the Selferians, of Anna Hanum,
of Gabriel, of Vahanian, etc., are all perfectly true, the names only
have been altered.
This alteration of names was rendered necessary by the circumstances of
the case. But every one at all acquainted with the subject will
recognise the heroic lady I have ventured to call Miss Celandine. To the
very remarkable character of the martyred Pastor Stepanian I have, I
fear, done imperfect justice. The particulars of his death and of the
fate of his children are given quite accurately, and the ideas
attributed to him, and even the illustrations used, are really his own.
The only slight departure from known fact has been the assumption that
the quick and painless death--for which those who loved him thanked
God--(to one such it brought the _first tears_ she was able to shed)
came from the hand of a friendly Turk.
For one other departure from fact I have to apologise. I have ignored
the existence in Biridjik, during the time embraced by the story, of a
Protestant Church and pastor; and this although the sufferings of the
pastor and his family in the massacre there would form, in themselves, a
thrilling narrative. But I desired to show something of the Gregorian
Church and the Armenian people, as they existed apart from any contact
with foreigners. Throughout I have tried to give the impression, which
is the true one, that Gregorians and Protestants have suffered and died,
with equal heroism and equal willingness, for the name of Christ.
There is, nevertheless, one important sense in which facts have _not_
been truly represented. It has been absolutely impossible to depict the
worst features of these horrible crimes. To tell _all_ we know would be
simply to defeat the end for which we write--no one would read the
pages. It has been necessary to cover tortures--the most ingenious, the
most hideous, and the most excruciating--with a veil of general
expressions, and outrages yet more terrible than any torture with a
still denser veil of reticence. Of what has been endured by unnumbered
multitudes of our helpless sisters, it is agony to speak; but is it not
also sin and cowardice to keep silence?
An attempt has been made in the foregoing pages so to speak and so to
keep silence, and especially so to subordinate the horror of cruelty to
the glory of martyrdom, that the most sensitive and tender heart may not
be too painfully wrung. There is indeed much excuse for the
tenderhearted when they say, as they often do, "We will not read about
this subject; we will not think of it. It is too horrible. Our lives are
full already of cares and duties, perhaps even of Christian work. We
cannot take up this burden in addition to the rest. It would sink us."
That is intelligible and natural, sometimes even right. But it is _not_
right that those who thus decline to examine the case should at the same
time prejudge it, should dismiss with scorn, or incredulity, or
carelessness, the testimony of those who, having gone down into that
depth of horror, have come back burdened with an anguish which can only
find relief in the effort to help the surviving sufferers. One of two
things people surely ought to do--they ought to examine the evidence for
themselves; or, declining this, and possibly with good reason, they
ought to accept the conclusions of those who have.
In the earlier stages of the tragedy many were misled, and not
inexcusably, by reports that came from official sources in Turkey. Here
is a specimen--a message sent by the Sultan to the Ambassador of
England, in February, 1896, when the unprovoked slaughter of the unarmed
and defenceless thousands of Urfa was still reeking to Heaven:--"That
the Armenians have everywhere and always been the aggressors, that the
Mussulmans have been attacked in their mosques during their prayers,
that they have suffered nameless atrocities from the Armenians, for the
latter had Martini guns, dynamite, and bombs, while, to defend
themselves, the Mussulmans had only old, superseded fire-arms."
Were Pascal amongst us now, he would scarcely devote to the confusion of
the Jesuits his celebrated "_Mentiris Impudentissime!_"
Happily, the truth is known now. It may be briefly summed up in the
words of Victor Bérard, an eminent Frenchman well acquainted with the
East, who has devoted himself to the careful investigation of the whole
question, and published the results in "_La Politique du Sultan_." "In
the opinion and the language of all, Christians and Mussulmans, 'young'
and 'old Turks,' Greeks and Bulgarians, natives and strangers, he (the
Sultan) remains the promoter and arranger of all that has been done
within the last two years. Every one knows and every one says, 'He has
wished it, he has ordained it. The Master has permitted us to kill the
Armenians.' This permission has cost the lives of more than _Three
Hundred Thousand_ human beings. For, besides the public butcheries, the
'fusillades en masse,' and the massacres with spear and sword, how many
stabbings with knives, assassinations, and private murders! Besides
those who were murdered, how many women, children, and old people
perishing in the fields left uncultivated, in the villages infested with
the odour of corpses, in that epidemic of plague and cholera which,
since 1895, has desolated Turkish Armenia! Putting all exaggeration
aside, we may make the following calculation. Since the 1st of July,
1894, more than 500 Armenian communities have been stricken or
suppressed. Some, like those of Constantinople or Sassoun, have had more
than 5,000 dead. The figure of 3,000, as at Malatia, Diarbekr, Arabkir,
has often been reached. That of 1,000 is common, and the minimum of 300
has been everywhere exceeded. Van, with 10,000, seems to hold the first
rank. Taking then an average of 500 dead, we remain much under the
truth, and this average, for the 500 communities stricken, gives 250,000
corpses. How, in a time of unbroken peace, could a man conceive such an
enterprise, and how, under the eyes of Europe, could he bring it to
pass?"
It need only be added, that those on the spot consider the above figures
indeed _much under the truth_.
A common way of dismissing the subject with a phrase is to say "The
Armenians are as bad as the Turks." This may be understood in either of
two senses: the first originators probably meaning it in one, while
those who repeat it commonly take it in the other. It may mean, "The
Turk at bottom is as good as the Armenian,--The Armenian at bottom is as
bad as the Turk." Whether this be true or no, it does not affect the
present question. If we see a man being murdered, we do not stay to
enquire into his character and antecedents before coming to his aid.
Were the Armenians the most degraded race in the world, and the Turks
(originally) the noblest, that is no reason why humanity should allow
the Turks to torture and outrage and slay the Armenians.
But, if the meaning is that the Armenians are as much to blame for these
troubles, as much in fault with respect to them, as the Turks, it might
be relevant, if it were true. True, however, it emphatically is not.
Hear the testimony of Dr. Lepsius, who has made an exhaustive study of
the whole question. "The Armenians are not to blame. It would certainly
have been no wonder if the Armenian people, who for years, by a
systematic policy of annihilation on the part of the Porte, had been
given over defenceless to every kind of injustice at the hands of
Turkish officials, to every sort of violence on the part of their
Kourdish lords, to extortion by the commissioners of taxes, and to the
utter illegality of the law courts, had risen up in a last desperate
struggle against the iron yoke of tyranny. But as a matter of fact it
was impossible to think of a national rising. To begin with, the
Armenians, though large districts are thickly populated with them, are
by no means everywhere in a majority in the provinces in question, and
by the law which forbids Christians to carry arms, while allowing them
to Mahometans, they are absolutely defenceless. In fact, no one in
Armenia has ever thought of demanding anything like autonomy. All that
was hoped for was that the Reforms should be carried out which eighteen
years before had been guaranteed by the Christian Powers, and which
seemed to promise to the Armenians an existence at least bearable.
Through the entire district of the massacre we have not been able to
discover, notwithstanding the fulness of our information, any movement
(except that in Zeitoun) which could be considered to be of the nature
of a revolt. The commissioners in their report were not even able to
establish any act of provocation on the part of the Armenians; and when
such were alleged by the Turkish authorities, the official report has
proved it to be untrue. This is what occurred in Zeitoun. The Armenian
mountaineers of the Anti-Taurus, being terrified by the news of the
massacres in the neighbouring provinces, fled in thousands for
protection to Zeitoun, a natural fortress among the mountains. In the
neighbourhood of this town there are more than a hundred villages
inhabited exclusively by Armenians, who also pressed into Zeitoun. Near
the town there was a Turkish citadel, with a garrison of about 600 men.
The Armenians received news that this garrison was about to be
considerably reinforced, and that an attack was designed on the
defenceless people in Zeitoun. The Armenians decided to forestall it;
they armed themselves as well as they could,[5] stormed the citadel, and
forced the garrison to surrender before reinforcements arrived. They
then fortified themselves in Zeitoun, and held it the whole winter
against an army of 80,000 men, who, from time to time, were sent against
them. The result of the struggle has justified the Armenians of Zeitoun,
if indeed we are prepared to recognise the right of self-defence." For
the European Consuls intervened, and obtained for the brave Zeitounlis
honourable terms of peace, and an amnesty. It ought to be added,
however, that the promises made by the Turks were shamelessly violated,
and 3,720 of the Zeitounlis put to the sword.
But are there not Armenian Revolutionary Committees, and Armenian
Revolutionaries, who elaborate dark designs in secret, and throw bombs,
and do other desperate things? "Certainly there were some
Revolutionaries," Dr. Lepsius says again, "and in some foreign towns
there are still Revolutionary Committees. Human nature must have
changed if there are not, and one can only wonder that their number is
so small and their action so unimportant. At any rate the Turkish
Government is under obligation to them for existing, and is satisfied
that they should not die out; for who would then supply the sparrows to
be shot at with the cannon prepared? The editor of the _Christliche
Welt_, Dr. Rade, has already shown up the nonsense that is put into
European newspapers about Armenian "Revolutionary Committees," etc., and
has passed a just judgment on the boundless credulity of our newspapers
and their readers." (It must be remembered that Dr. Lepsius writes in
German and for Germans.)
In fact, the Armenians and their friends would be glad to know what
course of action they could possibly pursue which would commend them to
the sympathies of Europe? If people are attacked, they must either
submit, or resist, or run away. Run away the Armenians cannot, they are
strictly forbidden to leave the country; and those who have succeeded in
doing so have done it in spite of the Government. If they resist, they
are rebels, revolutionaries, and the Sultan in killing them is only
"exercising his undoubted right of punishing his revolted subjects." If
they submit, which is what, except in the case of the Zeitounlis, they
have almost always done, they are cowards, unworthy on that account of
our sympathies. _Cowards!_ The sands of the Colisseum and the gardens of
Nero in old Rome were strewn with the bones or the ashes of just such
cowards, but that is not the name by which we call them now.
"Still," it is sometimes said, "the Armenians did not suffer as
Christians, but as Armenians. Other Christians, subjects of the Porte,
have not been molested." That, even if true, is but half the truth.
Christians who were not Armenians were not killed; Armenians who were
not Christians (that is to say, who renounced Christianity) were not
killed. Therefore the Armenians suffered, not as Armenians alone, and
not as Christians alone, but as _Armenian Christians_. And those
Armenians who need not have suffered if they would have ceased to be
Christians, suffered definitely _as Christians_.
But how did the Armenians concentrate upon themselves all this furious
hatred? Why should they be massacred rather than Greeks or Syrians?
There are several reasons. The Greeks enjoy the protection of a foreign
Government, somewhat in the same way as do the Americans and the
English. The Syrians, besides being less numerous, are much more under
the observation and the patronage of foreigners. "The Armenians happen
to be the most numerous of the Christian races in Turkey; therefore they
bear the brunt of the Crusade. The Jacobites, the Chaldeans and the
Nestorians have their proportionate share."
But some say the Armenians have made themselves particularly obnoxious
to the Mussulmans as money lenders and usurers; that they have shown
themselves rapacious and exacting, and greedy of dishonest gain. The
same accusations were brought against the Jews in the Middle Ages, and
against the Russian Jews in our own day. There is, perhaps, the same
amount of truth in them. Put a clever, industrious, ambitious race under
the heel of an indolent, unprogressive one, and the former is sure to
seize eagerly, and not to use too scrupulously, the only power within
its reach, the power of the purse. As for usury, was not 33 per cent.
considered a fair demand in the Dark Ages, in view of the lender's
standing an even chance of getting nothing at all, or of getting
something very undesirable in the shape of the rack or the dungeon?
Insecurity is the parent of usury.
But, granted that the Armenians in other parts of the Turkish Empire,
and even occasionally in Armenia itself, may have earned some popular
hatred in this or in other ways, the vast majority of the victims have
been,--not usurers, not wealthy merchants,--but industrious artisans,
small shopkeepers, cultivators of the soil, with an admixture of the
more educated classes, the most envenomed hatred being directed against
those in any way connected with religion, whether as Gregorian priests
or as Protestant pastors. Skilled craftsmen, who abounded amongst the
Armenians, have been so nearly exterminated that some towns are left
without a mason, a carpenter, or a shoemaker; in others the Turks have
saved a few of these artificers alive, to supply them with the
conveniences which they are unable or unwilling to make for themselves.
The Armenian character cannot be dismissed with a few hasty
generalities. It is doubtful that _any_ national character can be so
dismissed; and the higher we rise in the scale of organic development,
the more variety we find. "_Ab uno disce omnes_" is an indifferent rule
even for the Fijian or the Samoan, but who would apply it to the
Englishman or the Frenchman? The Armenian, heir of an old civilization,
stands on a plane with the latter, not with the former. The worst
Armenians--and naturally they are those oftenest found in foreign
countries--show just the faults sure to be engendered in any race, and
especially in an astute, intelligent, enterprising race, by centuries of
oppression. These are, want of truthfulness and honesty, and greediness
of gain. Against these, which may be called the national faults, there
are great national virtues to set off--moral purity, sobriety, strong
domestic affections, gratitude, fidelity to conviction, industry, and a
very remarkable love of learning. The best Armenians--men like Pastor
Stepanian--who have cast off the national faults and retain the national
virtues, develop a very noble and singularly attractive character; and
are besides, in the fullest sense of the word, _gentlemen_. "The wood is
fine in grain, and takes the polish easily."
This deeply suffering race is not faultless--what race ever was, or is,
or will be?--but it is emphatically _worth saving_. And it is STILL in
our power to save very many,--starving men,--desolate and hopeless
women,--and helpless little children. Should any reader of the foregoing
pages desire to bear a hand in this good work--and even those who have
little to give may save, or help to save, _one_ woman or _one_
child--they may learn how to do it by communicating with the Association
of "Friends of Armenia," 47, Victoria Street, Westminster.
FOOTNOTE:
[5] The Turks had never succeeded in depriving the mountaineers of this
district of all their firearms. Besides, they contrived in some fashion
to make arms for themselves.
Butler & Tanner, The Selwood Printing Works, Frome, and London.